The Americans lost 28 fixed-wing aircraft and 5 helicopters; the British lost 7 fixed-wing aircraft; the Saudi Arabians lost 2; the Italians lost 1; and the Kuwaitis lost 1; the Canadians, on the other hand, lost 0. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. It was not credited to the crew but an F-15C that was also involved in the maneuvering.[8]. So yes, we logged a lot of time together. George Peppard is a proletariat blue collar officer trying to earn the Blue Max by getting 20 air-to-air kills. [11] EA-6Bs, EF-111 radar jammers, and F-117A stealth planes were heavily used in this phase to elude Iraq's extensive SAM systems and anti-aircraft weapons. Please dont do this. The Iraqi targets were located by aerial photography and were referenced to the GPS coordinates of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which were determined by a USAF senior officer in August 1990: he arrived at the airport carrying a briefcase with a GPS receiver in it, then an embassy car took him to the embassy. The dawn of victory nears as this great showdown begins.". The striking force came under fire from 3,000 anti-aircraft guns firing from rooftops in Baghdad. However, the lack of adequate terrain for concealment hindered their operations, and some of them were killed or captured such as occurred with the widely publicised Bravo Two Zero patrol of the SAS. USS America, USS Theodore Roosevelt, and USS Saratoga operated from the Red Sea (USS America transitioned to the Persian Gulf midway through the air war). [6] These first attacks allowed F-14, F-15, F-16, and F/A-18 fighter bombers to gain air superiority over the country and then continue to drop TV and laser-guided bombs. Persian Gulf CVBGs included USS Midway, USS John F. Kennedy and USS Ranger. The British air commanders were Air Vice-Marshal Andrew Wilson (to 17 November) and Air Vice-Marshal Bill Wratten (from 17 November). 2022 Cond Nast. The next coalition targets were command and communication facilities. https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/52589/page/, http://www.indepthinfo.com/iraq/airwar.shtml, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/desert_strike.htm, http://web.archive.org/web/20080317110507/http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/gulf.war/facts/gulfwar/, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/cron/, "Iraqi Air Force Equipment Introduction", http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/air-force-equipment-intro.htm, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,972677,00.html, IRAQ & AFGHANISTAN: DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN, John Sweeney Responds on Mass Death in Iraq, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0425158365, The Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm Timeline - Defenselink.mil, "Iraqi air-air victories during the Gulf War 1991", http://aces.safarikovi.org/victories/victories-iraq-gulf.war.pdf, Fixed-wing combat attrition in Desert Storm, http://books.google.com/books?id=d3lQPgAACAAJ, Bibliography of the Desert Shield and Desert Storm, United States Army Center of Military History, Numerous aircraft and air defence systems. But every one of them loved it. I requested that Eric not over-focus on gender and make her a hero because she is good in the jet and absolutely lethal in combat. Coalition bombing raids destroyed Iraqi civilian infrastructure. The U.S. pilots copped to just one loss in the war game an F-22 defeated by a Mirage 2000 flown by an Emirati aviator. The aerial strike force was made up of over 2,250 combat aircraft, which included 1,800 US aircraft, which fought against an Iraqi force of about 500 Soviet-built MiG-29, MiG-25, and MiG-23, and French-made Mirage F1 fighters. Jeremy Bowen, a BBC correspondent, was one of the first television reporters on the scene. I want them to walk out of there thinking, Wow, there are some young men and women out there on the high seas right now doing that very same job. Its not an Aviation movie, but its a great movie about the Navy and leadership. They didnt expect us to turn so aggressively.. He loved them and told me at the San Diego Premiere in May, Yank. [14] In particular, RAF and U.S. Navy aircraft which flew at low altitudes to avoid radar were particularly vulnerable, though this changed when the aircrews were ordered to fly above the AAA.[15]. Then factoring in the air-to-ground aspect. [16] This mass exodus of Iraqi aircraft took coalition forces by surprise as the Coalition had been expecting them to flee to Jordan, a nation friendly to Iraq, rather than Iran, a long-time enemy. The gender of Gooses kid was originally a man, but for about a month, the gender was shifted to a woman. Aviation popped up on my radar because I had a couple of uncles who flew for the Navy. At last their story is being told its a miracle! Cummings hopes Top Gun: Maverick does for the current generation what the original did for hispush civilians to enlist. The worrying implication, of course, is that Chinese, Russian and other rival planes also need not worry about Americas main jet fighter. They were. That was Joe and Erics goal, to make the most of the movie from filming real aircraft and actors in the jet. He walked to the embassy courtyard, opened the briefcase, took one GPS reading, and put the machine back in the case. To be fair, its unclear what scenario the jets were playing out: whether, for instance, the F-22 started out slower and lower in order to let the Rafale gain the advantage for training purposes. As a purpose of the war was to weaken Iraq militarily, the coalition had placed aircraft over western Iraq to try to stop any retreat into Jordan. A squad of F-22s from the Air Forces 1st Fighter Wing in Virginia flew toAl Dhafra, in the UAE, to train with French air force Rafale fighters and Typhoon jets from the British Royal Air Force. After this episode, the Iraqis made no more air efforts of their own, only sending most of their jets to Iran in hopes that they might someday get their air force back. No one wants to go to Captains Mast because that is where you go to get punished. Cluster munitions and BLU-82 "Daisy Cutters" were also used. In the early days, it was me, Eric, and Shaun. We spent five days straight in a hotel room in San Diego going through the screenplay line by line. The Caine Mutiny (1954) is based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning book. In Alissa Wilkinsons Vox Article, The long, long twisty affair between the US Military and Hollywood, film historian Mark Harris says the dynamic changed after Vietnam from the military saying to Hollywood, We need you to help us, to the military saying to Hollywood, Well help you. [27] In addition, 68 fixed wing aircraft and 13 helicopters were destroyed while on the ground, and 137 aircraft were flown to Iran and never returned. The night before we went to the ship, I showed Joe [Kosinski] a bunch of motivational flying videos that were exclusively Tomcat footage. Past evidence seems to confirm that a French fighter pilot once killed an American F-22 Raptor stealth fighter in mock combat. Other claims include an RAF Tornado GR.1A piloted by Gary Lennox and Adrian Weeks.,[29] however the Tornado in question crashed to the ground due to pilot error on a different date than the supposed air-to-air kill is claimed to have taken place. With the exception of a few minor plot line shifts, what we worked on is basically what made it to the big screen. Theres no 9-month deployment away from friends and family [laughs], missing births of children, anniversaries, water heaters blowing upall things my family has experienced while I was away. [23] A day after the Amiriyah attack, a British warplane fired a laser-guided missile at a bridge in the Al-Fallujah neighborhood west of Baghdad. As you can imagine, the movie doesnt accurately depict Navy life. endobj % Then he returned to the U.S., gave the GPS receiver to the appropriate intelligence agency in Langley, Virginia, where the exact coordinates of the U.S. Baghdad embassy were officially determined. The initial strikes were composed of Tomahawk cruise missiles[5] launched from warships situated in the Persian Gulf, F-117A Nighthawk stealth bombers[5] with an armament of laser-guided smart bombs,[5] and F-4G Wild Weasel aircraft armed with HARM anti-radar missiles. Joe and Eric were basically sponges, listening to the way we talked to each other, getting the feel of what the life is like, and taking it all in. So, I hope folks recognize that a lot of folks who are not getting paid a lot of money are doing some very dangerous stuff on behalf of our nation, and theyll never know it. One of the F-16s got shot down. It was about this time that Sparky left to head to NAS Lemoore to start his training track to be a Super Hornet squadron commanding officer. Its not one that makes you want to join the Navy, but its really good. The coalition flew over 100,000 sorties, dropping 88,500 tons of bombs,[2] and widely destroying military and civilian infrastructure. My friends from school still cant believe I pulled it off. Sparky and I then escorted Joe and Executive Producer Tommy Harper to Naval Air Station Lemoore, where the majority of our west coast strike fighter assets are stationed. Soon after, the Iraqi Air Force began fleeing to Iran, with 115 to 140 aircraft flown there. It missed and hit a residential area, killing up to 130 civilians. Those are the two-seat aircraft. In general, I was pushing back pretty hard early on to keep the movie realistic, but to a fault. The final number of Iraqi civilians killed was 2,278, while 5,965 were reported wounded. We cannot make this the most accurate, yet boring fighter pilot movie in the history of film, we need drama. The proposal initially was that four planes go into strike the target and two get shot down. Captain Iyad Al-Shamrani, one of the Saudi pilots maneuvered his jet behind the Mirages and shot down both aircraft. Copyright 2022 Center for the National Interest All Rights Reserved. Tom Cruise, Glen Powell, Miles Teller and Monica Barbaro in, Courtesy of Scott Garfield for Paramount via Everett Collection, immersive, shot-from-the-cockpit dogfights and low-altitude, close-formation flying scenes, the 500% statistic thats been floating around social media, The long, long twisty affair between the US Military and Hollywood,, likely adaptation of their unfinished Hypersonic SR-72 stealth plane, unclassified and famous video taken from the cockpit of an F-16. So the leap in technology from the F-14A to the Super Hornet F-18-E/F allowed this movie to be more dynamic with all these shots of the Super Hornet flying low and fast, which is just really fun by the way. Plus, the French still have a totally undeserved reputation in non-French military circles for battlefield incompetence one based mostly on a bad reading of World War II history. Fantastic movie about leadership, and the book is phenomenal. But in a slower, close tangle what pilots call a merge the heavier F-22 is at a disadvantage. Absolutely. Thats exactly what the two-seat super hornets would be doing. One B-52G was lost while returning to its operating base on Diego Garcia, when it suffered a catastrophic electrical failure and crashed into the Indian Ocean killing 3 of the 6 crew members on board. Im doing that! I knew that was the path I wanted to go down. Elements of Stroke 3, such as the intensity and chaos, are in the final scene after the Daggers come off target and are getting pummeled with SAMs. For the most part, they got it right. The F-16s never made it to their target because they were lit up by several surface-to-air missiles (SAM). We were evenly matched, German Maj. Marc Gruene toldCombat Aircraft. So, I hope folks recognize that, and then I hope that they want to come do it. Good call. I requested that and some form of military bearing and keeping standards for Navy regulations for haircuts and uniforms. Its an excellent movie about fighter pilots on the Western Front in World War I, and it is not a glamorous film about war and fighter pilots. Then they wanted single-seat F-18s for the entire movie because they wanted to keep the character count down. Early on, I gave a documentary produced by my good friend Paco Chierici called Speed and Angels to Joe and Eric. A few months ago, Joe called me and said, Yank. We called Joe and said it was beyond reality, so we worked on a different flow. The military also happily backed the sequel to Top Gun: Lockheed Martins Skunk Works partnered with Paramount Pictures to produce a physical mock-up/likely adaptation of their unfinished Hypersonic SR-72 stealth plane for the Mach 10 sequence, complete with a Lockheed logo on the pilot stick. Hes not from the bourgeoisie. One such instance had Iraq reporting that coalition forces attacked the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. I decided that I wanted to fly for the Navy just before I saw Top Gun back in 1986. [laughs] You dont fly air-to-air missions low to the ground, you fly very high. Gruene said the Raptor excels at fighting from beyond visual range with its high speed and altitude, high-tech radar and long-range missiles. I enlisted in 1986 when Top Gun 1 came out, and Im retiring the year Top Gun Maverick came out. There were a few hills I was willing to die on. But, if they used Super Hornets, theyd have access to 600 of them. I suggested that we find a new name because Captains Mast is what the Navy calls its judicial proceedings when Sailors violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice and are held accountable. When the Saudis appeared the Iraqi MiGs turned tail, but the Mirages pressed on.